Arcade Fire to Lead David Bowie Memorial Parade

The tributes to David Bowie have been plentiful and rightly so. Now Arcade Fire are getting in on the remembrance activities, as they are pairing up with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for a full-on David Bowie memorial parade through the streets of New Orleans.

As the Facebook event listing lays out, the parade will take place on Saturday (January 16), asking participants to meet at 4 p.m. local time at the city's Preservation Hall (726 St. Peter St., NOLA) and to "dress in you best Bowie outfit or something more strange."

"As a musician, you have to recognize great art, whether it's a style you participate in on your own or just respect," Preservation Hall creative director Ben Jaffe told Nola.com. "David Bowie created great art. He created music."

Apparently, the idea for the parade came from a conversation Jaffe had with Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, who by chance had all been recently rehearsing a version of Bowie's Modern Love" together.

"It was a lot of fun to get together and riff on it, and I thought maybe we could play a couple songs at the Hall, and it was really Win and Regine who said we need to parade," Jaffe said. "That's the way Bowie would want us to celebrate. With theatre and tradition and music. He would want people out in the street dancing."

News of the parade follows a previous Arcade Fire tribute in the form of the following statement:

David Bowie was one of the band's earliest supporters and champions. He not only created the world that made it possible for our band to exist, he welcomed us into it with grace and warmth. We will take to the grave the moments we shared; talking, playing music and collaborating as some of the most profound and memorable moments of our lives. A true artist even in his passing, the world is more bright and mysterious because of him, and we will continue to shout prayers into the atmosphere he created.